In 2005 Booz Allen Hamilton selected Dartmouth College as one of the "World's Ten Most Enduring Institutions," recognizing its ability to overcome crises that threatened its survival (most famously Dartmouth College v. Woodward). Dartmouth is recognized as one of the most unwired colleges in the U.S. thanks to its wireless campus.

Dartmouth alumni are famously involved in their college, from Daniel Webster to the many donors in the 19th and 20th centuries. Over many generations, Dartmouth has had one of the very highest alumni donor participation rates.

Dartmouth's original purpose was to provide for the christianization, instruction, and education of "Youth of the Indian Tribes in this Land...and also of English Youth and any others." Ministers Nathaniel Whittaker and Samson Occom (an early Native American clergyman) raised funds for the college in England through an English trust among whose benefactors and trustees were prominent English statemen, including King George III's Secretary of State for the Colonies in North America, William Legge, 2nd Earl of Dartmouth, for whom Dartmouth College is named. The fundraising was meant to support Wheelock's ongoing Connecticut institution of the 1740s, Moor's Indian Charity School (chartered 1754), but Wheelock instead applied the funds to the establishment of Dartmouth College, the ninth and last colonial college. Classes began in 1770 and the College granted its first degrees in 1771. Dejected and betrayed, Samson Occom went on to form his own community of New England Indians called Brothertown in Oneida country in upstate New York (currently known as Deansboro). The Brothertown Indians were displaced yet again in the early 1800s to what is today Wisconsin.

Painting by Robert Clayton Burns (1962) depicting Daniel Webster and the Dartmouth College Case

In 1819, Dartmouth College was the subject of the historic Dartmouth College case, in which the State of New Hampshire attempted to amend the College's royal charter to make the school a public university. An institution called Dartmouth University occupied the college buildings and began operating in Hanover, though the College continued teaching classes in rented rooms nearby. Daniel Webster, an alumnus of the class of 1801, presented the College's case to the Supreme Court, which found the amendment of Dartmouth's charter to be an illegal impairment of a contract by the state and prevented New Hampshire from taking over the college. Webster concluded his peroration with the words,

It is, Sir, as I have said, a small college. And yet there are those who love it.

Dartmouth's motto is Vox Clamantis in Deserto, "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness" (a reference to John the Baptist as well as to the college's location on what was once the frontier of European settlement). The school's color is "Dartmouth Green", a forest green. The sports teams go by the name "Big Green", a nickname dating to the early twentieth century. The teams' former mascot, the Dartmouth Indian, no longer is used, though proposals for a new mascot have included one devised by the college humor magazine, the Jack-O-Lantern: the notorious 'Keggy' is a lively beer keg who makes frequent appearances at college sporting events and has received unofficial approval by the student government. Dartmouth was a men's college until 1972, when women were first admitted as full-time students and undergraduate degree candidates.

At about the same time as coeducation, Dartmouth adopted its unique "D Plan", a schedule of year-round operation that allowed an increase in the enrollment (with the addition of women) without enlarging campus accommodations. The year is divided into four terms corresponding with the seasons; students are required to be in residence for at least one summer during their college career, and spend at least one autumn, winter, or spring term on leave. One wag described it as a way to put 4,000 students into 3,000 beds. Although new dormitories have been built since, the number of students has also increased and the D Plan remains in effect.

Dartmouth is governed by a Board of Trustees. The board includes the college President (ex officio), the state Governor (ex officio), seven other (Charter) trustees elected by the board itself, and seven (Alumni) trustees nominated for board appointment by members of the Association of Alumni of Dartmouth College, a body created in 1854 that represents over 60,000 alumni. (Specifically, trustee candidates may be nominated by an alumni council or by alumni petition, then an election is held, and finally the winner is, by longstanding agreement, appointed to the board by all Trustees. Several recent petition candidates have become Trustees in this manner.)

The centerpiece of today's Dartmouth College is its undergraduate college of roughly 4,200 students, constituting one of the most selective undergraduate institutions in the world. Throughout the most recent admissions cycle, 12,757 students applied for 1,050 places in the class, and only 16.8% of applicants were admitted. The median SAT score of enrolled students in the freshman class is 1470, of whom 88% were in the top ten percent of their high school class. Alongside the undergraduate college lie a small graduate school and three professional institutes, the Dartmouth Medical School (1797), the Thayer School of Engineering (1867), and the Tuck School of Business (1900). With these graduate programs, conventional American usage would accord Dartmouth the label of "university"; but for historical and nostalgic reasons (such as the Dartmouth College case) the school uses "Dartmouth College" for the entire institution.

The screenplay for the filmAnimal House was cowritten by Chris Miller '63 and is based loosely on a series of 1974 fictional stories he wrote about his fraternity days at Dartmouth, including "The Night of the Seven Fires." In a CNN interview, John Landis said the movie was "based on Chris Miller's real fraternity at Dartmouth," Alpha Delta. In an interview with The Dartmouth, Miller said that at least one incident in the film—one in which a Delta Tau Chi brother skis down the stairs as the band plays "Shout"—occurred at an Alpha Delta party at Dartmouth. The names of "Otter" and "Pinto" may be found in the yearbooks of the period, such as the 1963 Aegis. The movie was filmed at the University of Oregon.

Facilities

The Hopkins Center

The Hopkins Center ("the Hop") houses the college's drama, music, film, and studio arts departments, as well as a woodshop, pottery studio, and jewelry studio which are open for use by students and the public. Its front façade is similar to that of Manhattan’sLincoln Center, a later design by the famed architect Wallace Harrison. Facilities include two recital halls and one large auditorium. It is also the location of all student mailboxes and the Courtyard Café dining facility. The Hop is connected to the Hood Museum of Art and the Loew Auditorium, where films are shown. The Hopkins Center is an important New Hampshire performance venue.

Nelson A. Rockefeller Center

The Nelson A. Rockefeller Center is a center for interaction and discussion on public policy. Dedicated in 1983, the center stands in tribute to Nelson A. Rockefeller (Class of 1930). Known on campus as Rocky, the Center provides students, faculty and community-members opportunities to discuss and learn about public policy, law, and politics. Sponsoring lunch and dinner discussions with prominent faculty and visitors, the Center aides provides close interaction and discussion.

The Rockefeller Center has established a Public-Policy Minor at Dartmouth College and an exchange program on political economy with Oxford University (Keble College). In addition, the Center provides grants to students engaged in public-policy research and/or activities.

John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding

The John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding was established in 1982 to honor Dartmouth's twelfth president (1945-70), John Sloan Dickey. The purpose of the Dickey Center is to "coordinate, sustain, and enrich the international dimension of liberal arts education at Dartmouth." To this end, the Dickey Center is committed to helping Dartmouth students prepare for a world in which local, national and global concerns are more strongly linked than ever. It strives to promote quality scholarly research at Dartmouth concerning international problems and issues, with an emphasis on work that is innovative and cross-disciplinary. And it seeks to heighten public awareness and to stimulate debate on pressing international issues. The Dickey Center also hosts several student-run organizations, such as the Dartmouth World Affairs Council (WAC), fostering undergraduate awareness of international affairs.

Aquatic facilities

Alumni Gym hosts two pools, the Karl Michael Competition Pool and the Spaulding Pool. Together they comprise a total of fifteen 25-yard lanes and two 50-meter lanes. The Karl Michael Pool, constructed in 1962, was designed by former Dartmouth College Men's Varsity Swim Team captain R. Jackson Smith, class of 1936. In 1970, it was formally named the Karl Michael Pool, after the coach of the men's varsity swim team from 1939-1970. The pool features eleven 25-yard lanes, with a special bulkhead that can be lowered to create two 50 meter lanes. The pool area has a seating area for 1,200 spectators. The Michael Pool hosted the 1968 Men's NCAA Championships, in which several American records were set. The pool also features one and three meter diving boards, with a water well 12 to 14 feet deep.

Adjacent is the Spaulding Pool. Spaulding Pool is a 10 by 25 yard pool constructed during 1919 and 1920 and designed by Rich & Mathesius, Architects. The Spaulding Pool is one of the oldest continuously operating pools in the United States. The pool's interior walls feature original encaustic tiles apparently designed by noted ceramist Leon Victor Solon. The pool has seating for several hundred spectators. Both pools are currently used by the Men's and Women's Varsity Swim Teams, as well as a host of other programs within the college.

Housing clusters

As opposed to ungrouped dormitories or residential colleges as employed at such institutions as Yale, Princeton, Cambridge, and Oxford, Dartmouth utilizes "housing clusters." Housing clusters are groups of two to three dormitories (although some one-dorm clusters exist) that are located physically near one another. Student tend to associate with their housing cluster more than their individual dormitory.

Student Life

Student groups

Dartmouth hosts a large number of student groups, covering a wide range of interests. For example, as of 2005
student musical groups include the Barbary Coast Jazz Ensemble, the Dartmouth Glee Club, the Christian acapella group X.Ado, the Dartmouth Chamber Singers, the Dartmouth Aires, the Dartmouth Final Cut, the Dartmouth Cords, the Dartmouth Dodecaphonics, the Dartmouth Gospel Choir, the Handel Society of Dartmouth College, the Dartmouth College Marching Band, the Dartmouth Rockapellas, the Dartmouth Symphony Orchestra, the Dartmouth Wind Symphony, the Dartmouth Brass Society, and the World Music Percussion Ensemble.

Winter Carnival

Winter Carnival is, as of 2004, a 94-year-old tradition at Dartmouth College and was particularly famous during the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s.

The Dartmouth Outing Club, founded in 1909, organized a winter weekend "field day" in 1910. This was an athletic event centered on skiing, a sport which the Outing Club helped to pioneer and publicize on a national scale. In 1911 the event was named Winter Carnival, social events were added, and women were invited to attend. By 1919 the emphasis had shifted to dances organized by fraternities. Special trains made runs to transport women guests to Dartmouth, and National Geographic Magazine referred to it as "the Mardi Gras of the North." The event became famous, much as Spring Break in Fort Lauderdale was to be during the 1950s and 1960s.

Carnival was the subject of the frothy 1939 motion picture comedy Winter Carnival, starring Ann Sheridan, who plays a former Winter Carnival Queen of the Snows who has made a bad marriage to a European duke and revisits Dartmouth in an attempt to save her younger sister, the current Queen, from repeating her mistake with a European count.

The movie is remembered mostly for its extracinematic associations; F. Scott Fitzgerald and Dartmouth alumnus Budd Schulberg were hired to write the screenplay. While gathering background in Hanover during Carnival, Fitzgerald became scandalously drunk at fraternities and was forced to leave the project. Although portions of his work were used, he was not given a writer's credit. The events and personalities bear a resemblance to those recounted in Schulberg's novel, The Disenchanted.

Winter Carnival takes place each year on a weekend in February and include such events as ski competitions at the Dartmouth Skiway; a polar bear swim; a cappella and jazz concerts; a human dogsled race; a drag ball; and a showing of the 1939 movie. Students build a large Carnival-themed snow sculpture on the college Green. The 1987 sculpture held the Guinness record for the "tallest snowman." The sculpture in 2004 reflected the famous character 'The Cat in the Hat,' in honor of the 100th birthday of Dartmouth alumnus and creater of the character, Dr. Seuss.

Numerous parties are thrown by the campus's fraternities and sororities. In 1999, students cancelled their parties to protest other administration policies.

Dartmouth Night

Dartmouth Night starts the college's traditional "Homecoming" weekend with an evening of speeches, a parade, and a bonfire. Traditionally, the freshman class builds the bonfire and then runs around it a set number of times in concordance with their class year; the class of 2009 performed 109 circuits, the class of 1999 performed 99, etc.

President William Jewett Tucker introduced the ceremony of Dartmouth Night in 1895. The evening of speeches celebrated the accomplishments of the college's alumni. Originally the event took place in the Old Chapel in Dartmouth Hall, but over time other events began to become more important and popular and Dartmouth Night moved outdoors.

The focus of Dartmouth Night is the bonfire. Students had built bonfires during the late nineteenth century to celebrate sports victories, including one in 1888 that recognized a baseball victory over Manchester. An editorial in The Dartmouth criticized that fire, saying:

It disturbed the slumbers of a peaceful town, destroyed some property, made the boys feel that they were being men, and in fact did no one any good.

The students nevertheless continued to build bonfires before and after athletic events, and by the mid-twentieth century, bonfires were firmly associated with Dartmouth Night.

Richard Hovey's Men of Dartmouth was elected as the best of all the songs of the College at Dartmouth Night in 1896, and today it serves as the school's alma mater. In 1904, the Earl of Dartmouth visited the campus on Dartmouth Night with New Hampshire politician and author Winston Churchill and marched around the Green with the students. Early on, the tradition of reading out telegrams (later e-mail messages) sent that night from alumni clubs around the country began.

Football first began to be associated with Dartmouth Night during the 1920s. Memorial Field was dedicated on Dartmouth Night in 1923. For decades the raucous pre-football rallies remained separate from the dignified official activities. In 1936, the College first began the tradition of football games during this weekend; ten years later the formal College events and the rally were combined in a single grand event, and for the first time Dartmouth Night was intentionally scheduled on what is called Dartmouth Night Weekend.

During the 1950s, students adopted a star-hexagon-square structure for the bonfire. Following the tragic bonfire accident at Texas A&M in 1999, the school hired professionals to do some of the building; nevertheless the night still remains a highlight of the school year.

Athletics

As of 2004 Dartmouth College hosts 34 varsity sports: sixteen for men, sixteen for women, and coeducational sailing and equestrian programs. This place it among the top United States colleges and universities in this regard. In addition, there are twenty-three club sports and twenty-four intramural sports.

Dartmouth hosts many athletic venues. Dartmouth College Alumni Gymnasium, the center of athletic life at Dartmouth, is home of the Dartmouth College Aquatic facilities, basketball courts, squash and racket ball courts, indoor track, fencing lanes as well as a rowing training center. The college also maintains both indoor and outdoor track facilities, hockey arena, football stadium, rowing boat house, and tennis complex.

As is true of all Ivy League schools, Dartmouth College does not offer athletic scholarships, yet is home to many student athletes. Currently many as three-quarters of Dartmouth undergraduates participate in some form of athletics, and one-quarter of Dartmouth students play a varsity sport at some point during their undergraduate years. The actual numbers of varsity athletes and varsity sports are thus much larger than at schools ten times Dartmouth's size.

In addition to official varsity sports, Dartmouth students participate in several "club" teams, such as those for rugby.